King Croesus

This blog is about the KCCD2009 (King Croesus Contempt for Death) Trip and it's preparations. The journey will be performed on 2x 1939 Nimbus motorcycles with sidecars and ETD is April 2009. ETA is unknown, as you never know if it's a Sweet Chariot or an Infernal Machine you ride.

Monday, 28 February 2011

Germany & Copenhagen

Translator's entry:

The guys are almost home, at the time of writing in Northern Germany, just 40 clicks from the ferry to Denmark. Whatever happened between there and Egypt I have no idea, except that the frame of Tormod's Nimbus broke on both sides 70 kilometres south of Kassel. That's been fixed now, but looks like shite (seventh frame incident).

If everything goes according to plan they will raid the duty free shop on the boat and arrive in Rødby ferry harbour early tomorrow morning, have breakfast with Fin Ohlendorff (one of their staunchest supporters) there and then ride on to JC Nimbus in Copenhagen. Estimated time of arrival will be 1 pm.

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Egypt before and after the "revolution"

The press has been moaning a lot about being held up by the police and army in Egypt, they shouldn’t take it personally. Most of us have.

The tourism promotion board has now said it’s all calm now, situation is under control and no problems to return. Bullshit. We have been held up, locked up and harassed by police equally well both before and after the step-down. The army, police and people don’t know how to handle the situation and still acts in a very bad manner certain places.

It should be said that the police, army and sometimes even people has been polite and emphasizing that you should not feel their actions as a threat. However, their actions speak the opposite story. It also speaks a story about a population, an army and a police force that has a utter lack of professionalism, compensated with lack of education and/or to use common sense. It’s still really not a place to travel for over-fragile people.

Before the situation was “settled” we travelled from Aswan to Alexandria. After the situation was “settled” we tried to go from Alexandria to El Alamein to look at the war cemetery, 105 kilometers west of town. The two entries below are two short stories of how the police/army acted before, and after Friday 11th.

From what I’ve seen out there myself I can’t realize how the tourist promotions board can say it’s all under control. How can the people assume that the “professional” army will run this country wonderfully till democratic elections can be held, when they can’t even handle their hand guns and crowds of people?

I’m not going to analyze this situation as I’m more interested and competent in combustion engines, but I assume the revolution in Iran looked at a good idea at the time as well, and the orange revolution in Ukraine at least led to a victory-intoxication for some time, literally.

Tormod

After the "revolution" everybody can freely go around and shoot happy pictures without any problems with army or police. Everything is calm and under controlled. Yes, indeed...

Everybody is happy and positive, let's just hope it keeps up that way.

Held up in Mininia (8th of Feb)

From Aswan to Luxor all had been quiet, though we saw the first shattered windows and tanks in Luxor. As we progress up the Nile Valley we get into more confrontations with the police. They normally act friendly, but unprofessional and ask for bakshees (bribes) all the time.

Fair enough, this normally happens also in normal circumstances in Egypt too. Most of the time they are pleasant/ok to deal with, to the degree it’s ok to be escorted and stopped all the time. At one point, they even help me to get my bike’s broken frame welded.

When we reach Mininia it is a different story. We have to stop for the night, park at square in the center and ask for a hotel. Within 5 minutes it is 2-300 civilians around us, demanding to see our passports. Of course you don’t show your passport to strangers so I say no. The crowd get more and more aggressive, and accuse us for being spies from Mossad. Everybody knows the Mossad normally drives Nazi-style sidecar motorcycles from the thirties on their operations, but not Danish ones for God’s sake.

When they understand they will not get to see the passports they threaten to call the police, so I tell them to go ahead. First a uniformed officer shows up on motorcycle, and he is calm and ok. Then a plain-cloth officer come and demand to see passport. I ask for his ID, which he hasn’t.

Needless to say, no passport flashing. As the crowd get more and more “intense” I suggest that we take refuge at the police station, which the undercover cop think is a good idea. So off we go, with 2-300 nuclear researchers, a fair amount of neurologists, some brain surgeons, a few rocket scientists and a minority of camel fuckers running after us, shouting and hoping for the Israeli spies to get hanged at the spot.

At the police station they are polite, and serve us tea and cigarettes. However, their actions and questioning don’t impress in a positive way: What are you doing for work? Where do you come from and what is your nationality (while “reading” the passport)? Do you carry a lot of gold and diamonds?

They write down the information from the passports and when it is done they ask our names are again. Then they start to argue about who should have the paper where they have written down the information. After quite some time a bright mind recalls they have a Xerox machine so each one of they can have a copy, even of the passport’s front page. We are stunned by their ability to reason out this brilliant idea to take photocopies and just has to congratulate them.

After four hours of phone calls (but never to the Norwegian embassy which would be the easiset way to check us out from Mossad's payrolls) and clever cross-examination they take us to a hotel, where it is a tourist police that checked our bags. Just as well, we might have equipment and a desire to blow up the towns most ran down hotel, especially as we’re the only guests. Then they fetch us with a police car with flashing lights and siren to a restaurant, and back to the hotel and placed a guard for the night, in addition to the tourist police officer. The next morning they escort us out of town, and could proudly look back at another intricate case closed.

Tormod

Some of the police/army we had no problems with, and actually helped somewhere down the Nile Valley. All they wanted was some bribes, like 95% of them. When they didn't get anything it was still no problems with them.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name”

Locked up on the way to El Alamein (13th of Feb)

As the “revolution” is over everything has become better already, at least according to most locals and tourist industry. Hence, we decided to kill a few days going to El Alamein to see the war cemetery and museum and camp out in the dessert.

In the western outskirts of Alexandria there is massive traffic jam and while standing still in a junction guy in military uniform comes and try to communicate us to stop, without speaking a word English. Soon some police in civilian clothes show up, speaking English. And of course, the civilians’ mob quickly gathers.

Within ten minutes I assume there is again between 2-300 spectators, helping the police and army, by demanding a thorough examination and suggesting what kind of spies we are, some quite aggressive. A doctor is present, and tries to calm down us, the army and the crowd. “Don’t be afraid, we’re in an emergency so we need to check you but won’t hurt you. We’re generous and nice people.” I need to get to El Alamein, not getting comfort about a crowd of cowards that are more a threat of making me a racist than hurting me.

Soon the mob is so big and out of control that the army has to retreat with us. To get us and the bikes out the soldiers and officers actually load their Kalashnikovs and hand guns, waiving uncontrolled. At least they get rid of them. First they want us to leave the bikes and jump into a car with them and lose track of where we are and our equipment. No way will we leave the bikes there, so after a big argument they let us go with the bikes.

A kilometer down the street we park next to a M1 Abe tank, and the army has a office in the building. Same stupid questions all over again. They search the bikes and our pockets, even going through all the pictures on the memory cards. I lose track of how many different people look at the passport and ask our nationality at the same time, a good number of them holding the passport upside down while examining them.

Then they start the search all over again and do some frightful finds: one pocket knife, one German paratrooper knife (10 cm blade), 8 flares for animal warning while camping (each containing something like 2 gram of phosphor), to writable CDs, some memory cards and a spare battery and charger for a laptop. This takes about two hours, and probably made them happy as they called of the search half way through the boxes.

At this point there is a big mob gathered again, so they decide on going to an army camp. Each of us have to take an officer on our bikes, and mine is waiving his 9mm hand gun frantically all the time when driving. I would not mind if he could control his gun, but he can’t.

Sometimes he’s pointing at his legs, sometimes at cars and pedestrians, sometimes in the air and sometimes at my head at 6 inch distance. The gun is loaded and the safety off. I scold him several times for it, tells him to either control the gun or to put it away. Every time he says he’s sorry, but forgets himself after some seconds. The road is bumpy and we’re stopping and going all the time, I just await an accidental shot and just hope it does not comes my direction.

We visit two army camps before one will let us in; obviously they are not organized at all. When we are finally let into one they speak to the officer in charge, showing him the dangerous items they have confiscated.

The officer in charge does not even greet us, just order us locked up. The take us to a small house and shut the door with a big bolt from the outside. Inside, two kids aged about 12 years is sitting in a corner, tied with their hands on their backs. They look dirty and beat up. On the wall there’s a picture of the army’s chain of command with Mubarak on top.The window is halfway open, I fully open it and send the soldier that just locked the door an ironic grin. He seems embarrassed and makes and angry gesture to make me shut it.

After a half hour the banana-benders have found a translator as they don’t speak English themselves. Explaining why we got knives and flares all over again. They say they have to keep the flares and knives, but we’re free to go.

It’s getting dark soon so we don’t have time to argue much more, so we say that’s ok but they have to give us a receipt so we can bring up the issue with the correct authorities. This is met with total refusal and it’s now clearly turned into a matter of corruption and collecting souvenirs from tourists. They are not so confident anymore.

The arguing about the receipt goes on and we get nowhere with it. We need to get out before it’s getting dark, and am a bit pissed after four hours with them. We just say fuck this, and tell them to give us the knives and we’ll break the blades and keep the handles our self. Obviously disappointed they can’t argue much about this, though they try.

We head back to the hotel Alexandria. To the degree I ever had any respect or faith in the Egyptian army and police the last bit of it is gone now. I just wish them all good luck and sit tight till my ferry takes me to Italy in a few days.

Tormod

This is the dangerous items confiscated, beside a match to show the size. The Paratrooper was packed intto a box in the bottom of Klaus' sidecar, hence totally unavailiable. I could have slight understanding of the action if it was concealed on the body, but in this case it would take 20 minutes to dig out. Note the knife is now dismantled, and the blade of the pocket knife is broken off. At least they didn't get anything out of their actions.

This is how the army like to be seen, and is pretty much the case in Alexandria now. However, when you get a little bit away from where media and foreigners are present the story is quite different.

Monday, 14 February 2011

Alexandria 11th of February 2011

Saad Saghloul Square and the Corniche Street is boiling over of people. The atmosphere is somewhat reserved and tense till the big news come: Mubarak has stepped down. The atmosphere suddenly get ecstatic and those not already out there flock to the street.

Friday morning it’s clearly quiet before the storm. The streets are empty, and as we drive around with foreign bikes we quickly get hunted down by plain cloth police the checks passports, yells and wonder why we are here. That we are stuck awaiting ferry to Italy get responded with harassment and threats about what will happen later in the day, but we really don't have any other option than sit around here.

The ambience is reserved, tense and the streets are more or less empty. The military has fortified the port and central government buildings with APCs and tanks. Everybody knows the Friday prayer will be the turning point of the day, but it’ll be a peaceful day or turn into riots nobody really knows. It makes people as well as authorities nervous.

People GatherThe Friday prayer is over and it doesn’t take long before Corniche, the beach road is filled with marching people. Slogans get shouted from choir leaders with loudspeakers on pickup trucks and followed up by the masses. All ages is represented, and the ambience and so many kids presents gives and indicator that it might be a peaceful afternoon.

The police stays passive, and so do the military. The protesters march around, while others take a break with a cup of coffee and a shisha at the curbside restaurant along Corniche.

The news comesI’m sitting at a cafe’ when uncontrolled exultation breaks out. Mubarak has stepped down. Everybody rushes up from where they are sitting at café’s and restaurants, hugging each other, congratulating and shout. The streets start to boil for real, the horn on the cars honk and the people compete about making most noise.

The celebrating people climb up on monuments at the square, dancing. People stands on the roofs of the cars sending up fireworks while shouting with joy.

A couple of hours later the celebration is even more intense. People rushes to the center from outskirts of the town. It’s evidently the day of the youth. Hassan that I speak to has broken his arm in the riots earlier, but says “We won, it was worth it!”

The young generation feel it was mostly their uprising. Mohammad says “Mubarak his administration hasn’t realized what the younger want and needs, and we’re sick and tired of corruption and misgovernment” Fazy says he hopes for more freedom.

It’s clear that it’s not only an optimism that rules today, it’s rather over-optimism. That the hardest part of the “revolution” is left is not a topic people want to hear about this day.

After a while I hide the memory card in my shoe, put in a fresh one and move over to where the military is present. Quite some civilians are gathered around an APC, while kids and girls get helped up on it by soldiers and taken pictures of. The cameras on the mobile phones are in constant use to immortalize the moment everybody regards as historic.

I recognize the soldiers and officers; it’s the same guys that took us in for checking us out a few days earlier when we arrived in town. They are friendlier now and I ask if all is well. “It’s a good day, it finally over and ended like I hoped says one of the officers, obviously relieved as it’s over and he can finally express his feelings and opinions.

Friday, 4 February 2011

An Inferno in Oil, Petrol and Dust

The Moyale highway. You probably haven´t heard of it, and that´s the point, as they say in New York.

This piece of non-existent road was the last tough part of the journey, a bandit infested “highway” between Isiolo and the border town Moyale in North Kenya. In Ethiopia the tarmac starts again and it lasts all the way to Alexandria where we fetch a ferry to Italy.

The gap between Isiolo and Moyale has been notorious for camel powered robbers in the long remote dessert stretches and a more or less non existing road.It wasn´t as tough as the Andes mountains in Bolivia and down to Paraguay with a wrecked gearbox, or through the hardest parts of Mongolia. And probably way less than the Labrador coast from what I gather.

However, it was still an inferno in vibrations, oil, petrol and dust. At this point of time the bikes pumps out oil from the engine and pours out petrol from cracks and vent holes in the fuel tanks.

All this mixes with the fine dust from the road and covers both man and machine. When you clean your nostrils at the end of the day it comes out something that would be considered hazardous waste in Europe.

With inadequate enough machinery even just 370 kilometers is enough to test your patience and ability. To go more than three four hours without a break is hard, and you average only 8-10 km/h for long periods.

The hard tailed bike constantly jumps on the never stopping washboards. If you push too hard you break the frame, so it´s just to idle on first and wrestle your way around the rocks, and slam it open and hold on when you get into the silt pits. What acts to your benefit is that it´s very few curves, but that´s the only positive thing to say as well.

Another thing is the constant burn on your legs from the overheating engine. For these conditions you feed the engine with even more fuel than it can eat to avoid heat seizures. Despite this it´s like riding a sauna stove.

You feel a constant pain from the heat through your thick and smelly leather boots, and when it´s at the hottest of the day and the gravel is loose and deep enough the engine still starts detonating and almost seizure anyway. It says a bit considering the engine is at its very outer limit of the tolerances with 80 000 kilometers on the same bore and pistons.

The final bonus is callosity on your hands from steering, and burned away fingerprints on thumbs and indexing fingers from working on the hot bike.Strange enough, both I and the bike seem to like all this suffering. It’s some kind of perverted good feeling when you´re through it. You sit down with a drink, plug in your Ipod and just look at the bike in the African sunset. There is no room for complaints then.

**************

This was written after the second day on the bad road, from what I had heard the road was supposed to get better so I took the victory in advance and wrote this piece. What followed was two more days, way worse than the two first. When the road improved in Ethiopia different problems occurred, so I´ll write up the complete story a bit later and publish as a complete piece on the blog. The pictures below is from the third day, when things started to get infernal.

Urhino at the Henry Camp

It was a short day with only 50 kilometers or so, and six small hours of driving on the corrugated dirt road. We had heard good words about the Henry Camp in Marsabit, thus decided on an early night, eat properly, check the bikes and maybe have a drink looking at the bikes in the African sunset. It had been a couple of rough days already.

The camp was nice, with a hut functioning as a dorm, and showers and toilets in a separate building. As we checked in, the boy showed us around. First to the dorm, then up to the showers and toilets. On the way back from the shower to the hut he points at a fence, a fence that encloses a big area.

“There´s the rhino” he said. I could see nothing but a bunch of monkeys in the shades of the trees in the fenced in area. “WTF, you got you own rhino here? Is it yours?” I´d always assumed that rhinos were rare and as hard to find as virgins in Manila.

“I said rhino!!” he snapped at me. “Amazing, I´ve always wanted a rhino, do you wanna sell it?” I replied even more enthusiastic.

“Rhino!!” he says a bit annoyed. “Yes, for God’s sake, I´m not deaf! In fact, I´d like to buy it and bring it back to my grandmother as a present. I think she too would fancy a rhino.”

Klaus had an ugly grin on his face. “Tormod, give him a break. He says urinal, not rhino. “

The dangerous homerun is on

We´ve crossed equator, and it´s only Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt and some not even worth mentioning European countries separating me from “home”.

For me this is the nightmare leg, and the one I´ve always considered the most dangerous. Not because the very bad road and bandit infested area north in Kenya. Nor because the elections and unrest in Sudan with an armored division along our route, ready to go south if the desire appears after the election. All this is matters of bad luck if it happens something, and if I was an unlucky soul I´d be long gone already.

The problem is that when you´re this close, you´re feeling home and done with the journey. You start relaxing and lose focus, and that´s when you do the mistakes you can´t afford.

It´s like the transport legs on races like the Paris-Dakar; almost more people drive themselves to death after the high speed stages than during them. They´re tired, relax and screw up. In our case it doesn´t help that you´re more than likely driving in a hypothermia ridden state and react slowing than under normal circumstances the last few thousand kilometers.

It´s just to keep your head cool and steer her the last 5000 kilometers home. After all, to keep the head cool through the North European February night should go by itself.